Make

Make uses a makefile that describes how all of the files that we specify should be compiled together. You can write your own makefile for your program.

Autoconf is a program that can use a configscript to create a configure program. 'configure' lets you know if you will be able to compile the source files on the target system successfully. If successful, it "creates" your makefile.

Creating a package is a little different, it looks to see whether other programs are installed that are needed to allow your program to run.

With packages, there is the possibility of using binaries that the packaging system knows about, but this by itself doesn't play well with programs compiled on the users system. Strikes me as a catch-22 with Linux. Could use a script within the package to look for the right files needed from external libraries by checking paths they "should" be at. That would be a mixture of a package system with a compiled system.

From what I've read of FreeBSD, you have a ports system, whose base install apps would fall within standard FreeBSD locations, and then you have the apps you compile separately to wherever. Kinda reminds me of sattelites; they are useful but also "orbit around" out there.

So, I am going to build a package for a game for a gentoo user I met on Sourceforge. This is odd and interesting because gentoo users basically compile everything on their system, so it's not really for his system.